The treatment which Park now experienced in the camp of Ali was brutal and barbarous beyond description.

In the eyes of the degenerate Arabs of Ludamar he was an object detestable both to God and man—a Christian and a spy. Everything, therefore, that savage ingenuity could invent to insult and torture him was heaped upon him with fiendish glee and eagerness.

On the morning after his arrival he was confined in a small square flat-roofed hut built of corn stalks, which happily admitted the breeze and excluded the sun. The hog was tied to the hut as a suitable companion to the hated Christian.

From morning till night the unhappy prisoner had to place himself on exhibition, and incessantly demonstrate the whiteness of his skin, the number of his toes, and the method of adjusting his dress—for all which torment he was repaid with curses. In common with the hog, he was made the sport of men, women, and children alike. Not even at night was he left to himself, being continually disturbed by his guards bent on satisfying themselves that he was safe in the hut, or by thieves seeking what they could carry away. To these tortures of mind and body was added the uncertainty of what might be before him. A council of elders had considered his case, and he was variously told that death, the loss of the right hand, or the putting out of his eyes, was the fate reserved for him.

To add to the miseries of his condition, he had to suffer the hardships attendant on the observance of Rhamadan, the month of fasting, during which the faithful are not permitted to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. This fast from meat and drink, bad enough at any time in a scorching climate, was rendered doubly painful to the unhappy traveller by the extreme scantiness of the supply doled out to him once in the twenty-four hours at midnight. Then, too, it was the hottest time of the year, and so scorching at times were the winds from the desert, that it was impossible to hold the hand in a draught without pain. Sandstorms, too, now and again filled the air to the point of suffocation, while the heavens overhead were as brass, and the sands under foot as the floor of an oven.

Under these distressing conditions Park’s only rÔle was to comply with every command, and patiently endure every insult, compatible with appearing as useless as possible to the tyrants, so that they might not be tempted to detain him for the value of his services.

Day after day thus passed, each one more miserable than the preceding, but Park’s iron frame and indomitable spirit stood it all. Where his savage gaolers failed, however, the fears and doubts for his future progress and the ultimate success of his mission threatened to succeed. The excessive heat and scarcity of water in the wilderness made escape in the hot season out of the question, while the hardships and dangers of travel to be faced in the wet season appeared scarcely less appalling.

The blackness of the outlook began to cloud even his sanguine temperament, and the heart sickness of hope deferred frequently manifested itself in fits of melancholy and despondency. With the lowering of his mental tone came also the bodily reaction, and a smart fever was the result.

Even then he obtained no alleviation of his sufferings. His distress was a matter of sport to the Arabs, till life became a burden to him. He trembled at times lest the peevishness, irritability, and enfeebled power of self-command accompanying the disease should cause him to overleap the bounds of prudence, and in the height of an outburst of passion commit some act of resentment which would lead to his death—death, and with his work unfinished.

On one of these occasions he left his hut and walked to some shady trees at a short distance from the camp, where he lay down in the hope of obtaining a little solitude. He was discovered by Ali’s son and a band of horsemen, who ordered him to get up and follow them back to camp. Park begged to be allowed to stay a few hours. For answer one of the horsemen drew his pistol, and presenting it at Park’s head, pulled the trigger. Happily it did not go off. Once more the brute essayed his weapon with the same result. None of his companions made the least attempt to stop him. Helpless, Park could but sit awaiting his doom, what indeed would have been a happy release from his miseries, only that as yet the task he had set himself was unaccomplished. With renewed precautions the pistol was presented a third time, when the hapless victim, who so far had not spoken, begged his would-be murderer to desist, promising at the same time to return with him to the camp.

Before Ali his position was no better. With fiendish malignity the latter played with his prisoner as a cat does with a mouse, opening and shutting the pan of his pistol and watching the while the effect on the demeanour of the white man before him. Getting but small amusement out of his resolute and indifferent mien, he sent him off at last with the threat that the next time he was found wandering outside the camp he would be shot forthwith.

“One whole month had now elapsed since I was led into captivity, during which time each returning day brought me fresh distresses. I watched the lingering course of the sun with anxiety, and blessed his waning beams as they shed a yellow lustre along the sandy floor of my hut, for it was then that my oppressors left me, and allowed me to pass the sultry night in solitude and reflection.”

With habit and time Park began to be inured to his situation. Hunger and thirst were more easy to bear than at first, and the people getting accustomed to his presence, were not quite so troublesome. To beguile the time he made inquiries regarding the route to Timbuktu and the Haussa countries, and even got some of his tormentors to teach him the letters of the Arabic alphabet.

About the middle of April Ali proceeded north to bring back his chief wife Fatima. During the chief’s absence, though Park was less molested than usual, he was also less regularly supplied with his scanty rations. For two successive days he received none at all, and had to endure the pangs of hunger as best he might. This he found painful enough at first, but soon discovered that temporary relief might be had by swallowing copious and repeated draughts of water.

Johnson—who meanwhile had been brought from Dina before he could leave for the coast—and Demba, not having the spirit of their master to bear them up in the midst of misfortune, sank into the deepest dejection, remaining for the most part prostrate on the sands in a sort of torpid slumber, from which they could scarcely be roused even when food arrived.

To the languor and debility brought on by semi-starvation was added on Park’s part the affliction of sleeplessness; deep convulsive respirations shook him from head to foot; semi-blindness seized him, and with difficulty he fought a frequent tendency to faint.

But the cup of his misery was not yet full. The King of Bambarra, incensed at Ali’s refusal to join him against Daisy, King of Kaarta, proclaimed war against him. This threw the country into confusion. The camp at Benaun was at once broken up, and a retreat further north commenced. On the first day a halt was made at a negro town called Farreni.

Again Park’s rations were forgotten. Next day, foreseeing similar treatment, he proceeded himself to the head man of the town and begged some food. This was not only granted, but promised to be continued as long as he remained in the neighbourhood.

On the 3rd of May Ali’s camp was reached, and found to be pitched in the midst of a thick wood. Here Park was presented to Fatima. This lady was singularly beautiful, according to the Ludamar Arab idea—that is to say, she was remarkably corpulent. “A woman of even moderate pretensions to appearance must be one who cannot walk without a slave under each arm to support her, and a perfect beauty is a load for a camel.” To attain this pinnacle of perfection, the girls are gorged by their mothers with great quantities of kuskus and camel’s milk, which must be taken no matter what the appetite may be. “I have seen a poor girl sit crying with the bowl at her lips for more than an hour, and her mother watching her all the while with a stick in her hand, and using it without mercy whenever she observed that her daughter was not swallowing.”

At first Fatima affected to be shocked at Park’s appearance, but showed that she had a woman’s heart by presenting him with a bowl of milk. Later on she proved to be his best friend.

The heat had now become insufferable. Everything vegetable was scorched up, and the whole country presented a dreary expanse of sand dotted over with a few stunted trees and thorny acacia bushes. Water was almost unattainable, and night and day the wells were crowded with cattle lowing and fighting with each other to get at the troughs. The pangs of thirst rendered many of them furious and ungovernable, while the weak, unable to contend for a place, endeavoured to quench their thirst by licking up the liquid mud from the gutters—frequently with fatal consequences.

The suffering due to the scarcity of water extended to the people, and to no one more than the white captive among them. If his boy Demba attempted to get a supply of water, he was usually soundly thrashed for his presumption. This treatment became so intolerable in the end that Demba would rather have died than go near the wells. Park and his attendants were in this way reduced to begging from the negro slaves, but with indifferent success. Fatima, however, more than once relieved their necessities. Nevertheless, time after time, Park “passed the night in the situation of Tantalus. No sooner had I shut my eyes than fancy would convey me to the streams and rivers of my native land; then, as I wandered along the verdant brink, I surveyed the clear stream with transport, and hastened to swallow the delightful draught; but, alas! disappointment awakened me, and I found myself a lonely captive perishing of thirst amidst the wilds of Africa!”

One night, driven half wild by his tortures, he started off in search of relief. At every well he found struggling herdsmen, and from one and all he was driven away with outrageous abuse. At length at one he found only an old man and two boys, from whom he was on the point of receiving what he sought, when, discovering whom they were about to supply, they dashed the water into the trough, and told him to drink with the cattle. Too glad to get water in any way, “I thrust my head between two of the cows, and drank with great pleasure, until the water was nearly exhausted, and the cows began to contend with each other for the last mouthful.”

Signs that the wet season was approaching began to show themselves towards the end of May in frequent changes of the wind, gathering clouds, and distant lightning. At the same time Park’s fate was approaching a crisis, and he began to revolve schemes of escape. His hopes rose high when discovering that Ali was about to join some rebellious Kaartans in attacking Daisy, through the intervention of Fatima, he was permitted to accompany the expedition as far as Jarra. Once in Kaarta, he hoped that means would be found to escape from his barbarous captors.

Fatima next conferred a further favour on him by returning part of his clothes, of which he had been deprived since he fell into Ali’s hands. Following these came his horse, now reduced, by hard work and starvation feeding, to skin and bone, but still fit for work.

On the 26th of May, Park set out with the Moors towards Jarra, accompanied by Johnson and Demba. At night they camped at a watering-place in the woods, but the accommodation being limited, Park was compelled to sleep in the open in the centre of the huts, where he could more easily be watched.

In the morning they had to face unprotected all the violence of a sandstorm, which raged with great fury the whole day. At times it was impossible to look up. The cattle, maddened by the driving sand, ran recklessly hither and thither, threatening to trample the prisoners to death.

Next day our traveller’s rising hopes received a serious check. While preparing to depart a messenger arrived, who, seizing Demba, told him that henceforth Ali was to be his master, and that he must return at once to the camp they had left. With him were to go all his present master’s effects, though “the old fool” Johnson might go on to Jarra.

Park was completely overwhelmed at the idea of his faithful boy being sent back to such a life of misery as would be his lot in the household of Ali. Unable to say a word to the messenger, he ran straight to the chief himself, and his indignation for once getting the better of him, he upbraided him in passionate language for the new injustice he was about to commit, compared to which all else was in his eyes as nothing.

To this generous but unwise outburst Ali made no reply, beyond ordering him, with haughty air and malignant smile, to mount his horse immediately or be sent back likewise. Terrible was the struggle in Park’s inmost soul to refrain from ridding the world of such a monster, and giving vent to all the suppressed feelings of the last two months in one passionate outburst.

Happily he had not lost complete control over himself nor the ability to comprehend his situation, and he retired from the tent a prey to a hundred harassing emotions.

“Poor Demba was not less affected than myself. He had formed a strong attachment towards me, and had a cheerfulness of disposition which often beguiled the tedious hours of captivity.” But part they must. “So having shaken hands with the unfortunate boy, and blended my tears with his, I saw him led off by three of Ali’s slaves towards the camp at Bubaker.”

On the 1st of June, Jarra was once more re-entered, and Park became again the guest of the slatee. Everything else now became subordinate for the time being to the one object of procuring the liberty of Demba. Before this duty even his own escape became of secondary importance. All his attempts were ineffectual, however. Ali could not be prevailed upon to sell or return his new-made slave, though he never ceased to hold out hopes that Demba might yet be let off for a consideration.

On the 8th, Ali with his horsemen returned to camp to celebrate a festival, Park, to his great joy, being left behind in the house of the slatee. Once more he began to think of his own safety, seeing that now it was proved beyond a doubt he could be of no use to Demba.

Meanwhile troubles began to gather rapidly round Jarra. Ali, after securing the price of his co-operation, treacherously left his allies to their fate. Daisy with his army was rapidly approaching the town, whose inhabitants could expect no mercy from their enraged king. Finding themselves left to their own resources, the latter made such preparation as was in their power to defend themselves, at the same time sending away their women and children, with such corn and cattle as they could take with them. Park prepared to depart along with these. He saw clearly that if he continued where he was he would run the risk of being involved in the general slaughter if Daisy were successful, or if the reverse, that he would sooner or later fall a victim to the Moors. And yet to go forward alone seemed terrible enough—for Johnson flatly refused to proceed—without means of protection or goods to purchase the necessaries of life, or an interpreter to make himself understood in the Bambarra language.

The one comparatively easy road was that to the coast, but “to return to England without accomplishing the object of my mission was worse than all.”

The old spirit, never quite killed, was beginning to reassert itself, with the enjoyment of a certain measure of free will and liberty. Whatever was to be his fate, he should meet it, he determined, with his face towards the Niger.

On the night of the 26th, the women worked incessantly, preparing food and packing articles that were not absolutely necessary for the flight. Early in the morning they took the road for Bambarra.

The exodus was affecting in the extreme—the women and children weeping, the men sullen and dejected—all of them looking back with regret to the spot where they had passed their lives, and shuddering at the possible fate before them. Amid many heartrending scenes Park mounted his horse, and taking a large bag of corn before him, set forth with the flying multitude.

In this fashion he travelled onward for two days, accompanied so far by Johnson and the slatee. At Koiro a halt of two days had to be made to recruit his half-starved animal—an unfortunate delay, since it gave time for Ali’s chief slave and four Moors to arrive in quest of their white prisoner. This new calamity had to be met with prompt action if Park was not to face an indefinite period of miserable captivity. At once he resolved to escape by flight—a “measure which I thought offered the only chance of saving my life and gaining the object of my mission.”

Johnson was ready to applaud his master’s resolution, but flatly refused to join him.

The Moors, thinking the white man safe, did not trouble themselves about him, and he was thus able to prepare a few articles to take with him. Two suits of clothes and a pair of boots were all he possessed. He had not now a single bead or other article of commercial value to purchase food for himself.

About daybreak the Moors were all asleep. Now was the time to make good his opportunity. Liberty and possible success were in the balance with renewed captivity and possible death. A cold sweat moistened his forehead as the importance of the step he was about to take was brought with twofold force to his consciousness. But to deliberate was to lose the only chance of escape. He must make one more bold attempt to regain liberty and reach the Niger. The thought was inspiration. He picked up his bundle, stepped stealthily over the sleeping negroes, and reached his horse. Johnson was bidden farewell, and once more begged to take particular care of the papers entrusted to him, and to inform his friends on the Gambia “that he had left me in good health, on my way to Bambarra.”

A few years before, Major Houghton had sent an almost identical message to the same Gambian friends.